Dream Five, Chapter Thirty-Four

(Anything in asterisks is meant to be italicized.)

Barrons and I had agreed to spend three months with Kenna in Dublin before we'd move her to Scotland where my parents were patiently waiting. She laughed and smiled now, and could roll over all by herself, even hold her bottle, which I knew was very advanced at that age.

He was my whole world, but she was my light.

My little princess could hold objects and would sometimes hold onto me when I picked her up. Her little hands grabbed onto me in a way that made me never want to put her down. She smiled at us whenever we entered the room (unless she was crying) and her smile melted my heart.

I loved nothing and no one more than I loved Jericho Barrons, but Kenna was a very close second.

A week before we were scheduled to move her, he reminded me that we still had other options and could always bring my parents back. I spent the week mulling it over in my head, weighing the pros and cons of each option we had initially established in my journal. She'd be safest in Scotland, but I didn't want to be apart from her and I absolutely refused to be apart from him and I didn't want to leave my precious bookstore or the city I loved.

My heart was being torn apart and it felt like I constantly had a headache. The only time I felt peace was in his bed.

Metaphorically speaking. It isn't exactly a peaceful place.

It was early afternoon the day before we were due in Scotland and I had begun leaning towards canceling relocating Kenna. I'd put Kenna down for a nap before falling asleep on my favorite Chesterfield myself while reading. I wasn't sure what woke me up because she wasn't crying, but I was awake and knew I wouldn't be falling back asleep.

It had become habit to look for the baby monitor whenever I woke up, but I was unable to locate it despite being certain that I'd brought it down. A quick flash of fear that she was crying and I couldn't hear her sent me sifting to the hall outside of her nursery, stealing a quick peak through the door and finding her still asleep.

Once I'd sifted back to the bookstore and searched the usual places, I started searching the residence half of the first floor. After a quick check of the parlor where I'd once been forced to drop burning matches onto one of Barrons's antique rugs when his former employee and lover Fiona had let Shades in as an attempt to get rid of me, I caught the scent of spices and noticed the door of the study cracked open.

Despite knowing he knew I was out there, I crept over to the door and peaked through the crack to see him sitting behind his desk and looking through the photo album I had given him as a wedding gift. As he turned the page, there was a flash and I saw his platinum wedding ring on his finger. It sent a bit of a thrill through me as I fingered mine.

"Are you going to hover out there all afternoon?" he said without looking up.

I smiled and closed the door behind me before coming around behind the desk and popping up onto it, crossing my legs and feeling a little bit like Fran Drescher but blonde and without the big hair. The baby monitor was on his desk and I deduced that he'd found me asleep and taken it so I wouldn't be disturbed. It was the little things that really endeared him to me.

Plus all the times he's saved my life.

He was slumming it, wearing a tight t-shirt and black jeans with his usual steel-toed boots, his hair combed back and shorter than I'd seen it in a while. There was an unfathomable expression on his face as his dark eyes moved over the glossy photos I'd lovingly interred after writing captions on the back of each one.

If something ever happened to me, if for some reason he couldn't find me, if we were separated for an abhorrent amount of time, he'd have more than just images of me. The captions displayed my wit and humor so he'd have those, too. It also contained the only photograph he'd allowed to be taken of him at our wedding, and the only one in existence where anyone could see just by looking at me that I am ripped-down-raw in love with him. He'd expected me to have it framed somewhere, perhaps in my bedroom upstairs, but I'd wanted him to have it. It fit with the reason I'd given him the album.

Barrons still hadn't looked up when I sat on his desk, but his hand went to my knee as he continued looking through the album before slowly sliding further and further up my leg until my legs had uncrossed and his hand was well hidden under the skirt I'd decided to wear as I breathed heavily.

Before long, my hand went to his face and directed it towards me, saying, "Do you want to keep looking at the pictures, or do you want to look at the real thing?"

His eyes glittered and I was soon bent over his desk with my skirt flipped up over my hips, the album having been pushed aside as my legs stood a little wider than shoulder-width apart and my hands braced me on the desk. He was teasing me again, only giving me a little of what I wanted, and he'd continue to tease me until I told him exactly what that was.

"Fuck me, Jericho Barrons," I said on a frustrated groan when I just couldn't take it anymore.

I think he teases me like that for a number of reasons. One reason is because he enjoys watching and feeling me squirm beneath him. What man wouldn't enjoy watching his woman in that state, both of them knowing he had caused it and was the only thing that could satisfy her? He's always hard and I'm always ready whenever I'm in his presence, but I think he also does it to really get us both worked up. I think he takes a smug sort of pride in the noises I make, knowing I'm making them because of him. Another is to remind me that I need him, if only to make me howl in pleasure.

Occasionally I get started without him, but no amount of self pleasure can come anywhere close to the pleasure my wonderful mountain of man provides.

"C'mon, Barrons," I told him, one of his hands in my hair and the other at my hip. "You can do better than that."

A savage growl and a harder and faster rhythm was what I got in response.

I enjoy egging him on.

But I still wanted more after he had released inside me so I grabbed the baby monitor and his hand and took him down to the sex dungeon I'd made for him in the basement, which I'd also added on to the building.

He had me over a pile of pillows on the bed I'd covered in crimson silk sheets, slamming into me with me egging him on for harder, faster, more, more, always more. We switched positions a few times before I ended up collapsing onto his massive chest.

We'd been down there for about an hour when his phone rang. Kenna would be awake soon but she was usually content in her crib whenever we got carried away with each other. Until she needed changing or got hungry or just wanted attention.

Barrons had started to move but I laid my hand on his chest and he stopped. I didn't want him to move yet so I sifted the phone to my hand.

"Barrons's phone," I answered as I rolled off of him when he tried to reach for it.

"Mac," Ryodan said on the other end.

"Seems I'm not the only one with the worst timing," I told him with a snort of laughter before I sifted across the room as Barrons tried to grab me.

"Then both of you answer your fucking texts."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you stopped fucking Dani to reply to a text. How unfortunate for her. Remind me, why does she put up with you again?" I said with saccharine sweetness.

Barrons was still coming after me but not with his preternatural speed. He seemed to be enjoying the little game of keep away I had started, and he stopped and laughed at what I said, his white teeth flashing in his dark face. I grinned at the sound, preening happily because I had caused it.

"One text, no. When both phones are going off with multiple texts, yes," Ryodan gritted.

I sifted to another corner of the room, leaning back against the wall. "Some of us leave our phones outside of the sex dungeon. Or we at least have the decency to leave them out of sight."

There was a pause. Then, "Will you just put Barrons on."

I also sometimes enjoy antagonizing my brother-in-law.

I held out the phone as he approached and said, "It's for you."

Barrons gave me a look that read *No shit* before he kissed me hot and hungry, the hand that wasn't holding the phone pulling me up against him before giving my ass a squeeze as he ground his mouth against mine. He kept me pressed up against him as he spoke to his half-brother.

"What is so bloody important?" he growled. The volume was turned down low enough on his phone that I couldn't hear Ryodan's response so I stood there, wetting my lips, pressed up against him, and anxious for the call to end. As tempting as it was, I knew he wouldn't appreciate it if I sunk down to my knees while he was on the phone, not wanting anyone to get any ideas about just how much of a monster I was in the sack.

The decision was ultimately taken out of my hands when I felt the one on my ass make its way down between my legs to start teasing and fingering a certain womanly hole. I inhaled sharply and bit my lip as my eyes fluttered closed at his wonderful touch.

He looked down at me and said, "I'll get back to you." Barrons ended the call before kissing me again.

*Everything alright?* I sent as his tongue twisted and turned with mine.

*Quit fucking thinking when I'm in your mouth*, he replied as he pulled me back towards the bed before tossing me onto it and stretching over me. It wasn't until I was outlining the features of his face later that I asked what Ryodan had wanted.

"He and Dani and Lor want to come say goodbye to Kenna before tomorrow."

"Is that why you said you'd get back to him?" He inclined his head.

*Incase you wanted this to be our last night. Just the three of us.*

I smiled as I traced his sexy full lips before I leaned down to kiss him.

*I think I'd become a crying mess if it was just the three of us*, I admitted.

*You can always go with her, Mac.*

"Not without you I'm not," I said firmly. *I refuse to be separated from you, Jericho, so stop suggesting it.*

The corners of his lips twitched and we both turned our heads towards the monitor when Kenna started crying. I sighed and dropped my head into the hollow of his neck, inhaling as he wrapped his arms around me before I said, "That's her 'Mommy, Daddy, I'm bored and I want all of your attention now' cry."

"When did I agree to be called 'Daddy'?"

"You didn't, but she's going to end up calling you that," I said with a smile. "It's a cultural thing. She'll be living with two people from the Deep South where even grown men refer to their fathers as 'Daddy' so you might as well get used to it."